Kantisha Experience

It was another early start for us today. The bus left the park station at 6:15 and we wanted front seats for the day so off we went. Since there are only four hours of darkness it was bright out already, making it a little easier.

The day was long...about 11 hours on the park road all the way to the end. We went up and down and around the mountains, over tundra and rivers. The braided rivers fed by glaciers flowed alongside the road. It was beautiful to see the dark mountains striped with snow belted by the spruce and willows. The topography is interesting. The old glacier path is very flat gravel yet a glacier made of soil accumulation is convoluted and vegetation covered, not looking like a glacier at all.

Moose wandered munching willows, snowshoe hares hopped by, caribou grazed, and finally grizzly bears loped by. It was exciting to watch a distressed moose pacing as a grizzly and her cub made a meal of her baby. We felt sorry for her. Farther down the road, at a hairpin turn, we found a mother and her two cubs pawing the tundra for roots to eat. We kept very quiet as they we about 15 feet from us. As we started to continue down the road they all came up on the road. Mom laid down for a nap. Cubs kept wandering around as we passed on our way. Talk about up close and personal!!

Our guide Peter was a fountain of knowledge and kept us entertained with information and stories. The weather was good with a few sprinkles whose clouds kept us from seeing Denali well. Luckily we had stopped coming in to the area for a beautiful long range view of the mountain. It was a long time in a bus but we all decided that the trip was worth it!

Dinner was good back at 49th State Brewery again but this time we knew to split our dinners!!!

Off to Seward tomorrow with a stop in Girdwood to take the tram up to the top of Alyeska.